Out of the Country

John L. Swigert, Jr., the Apollo 13 astronaut who went to the moon in 1970, recalls how his job almost interfered with filing his federal income-tax forms: “On the second day of Apollo 13, April 12, I asked Mission Control to begin work to get me an extension of the filing date for my income tax. Since I had been a last-minute substitution on the Apollo 13 flight, things had moved so fast that I didnt have a chance to file my return.”

The IRS didnt have to make a special ruling to grant Swigert a two-month extension because of his Im-on-my-way-to-the-moon excuse, though. There was already a regulation that provided an automatic extension for anyone out of the country.